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Afghan Aid Chief Steps Down
FrontLines - July 2010
After 14 months heading
the largest USAID office in
Agency history—in Afghanistan—
managing more than
$2 billion a year in programs
during a war, Bill Frej is
stepping down from a long
career in foreign assistance.
“We have completely
transformed the aid program
and made agriculture the
number one priority,” said
Frej in an interview in
Washington.
Since he came to Kabul
in March 2009 to head about
150 U.S. employees at the
Agency compound opposite
the U.S. Embassy—and
dozens more at outposts
across the mountainous
Asian nation of 29 million—
Frej has led USAID
staff and partners to engage
local leaders to set priorities
for development programs.
“We are directing 37 percent
of assistance through the government
of Afghanistan,” he
said—double the rate when he
arrived.
To build the capability of the
Afghan government to handle
foreign assistance and manage
large programs, USAID aims to
further increase the level of
U.S. assistance sent through
Afghan ministries in the next
year or two to 50 percent, Frej
said.
“When I arrived, we spent
$85 million a month. Now it is
$275 million per month. This is
unprecedented,” he added. The
USAID budget for Afghanistan
reached $2.8 billion this year
and a supplement request is currently
before Congress. That
money has had an impact in one
of the poorest countries in the
world.
U.S. assistance helped
increase countrywide school
enrollment from 400,000 children—
only boys—in 2001 to
6.5 million today, 40 percent of
them girls, Frej said.
“I just went three hours by
jeep to a village in Bamiyan at
10,000 feet that was isolated
and saw children learning to
write—we work with the Aga
Khan Trust there.
“I’ve been to 28 of the 34
provinces and in almost every
visit, seen midwives training.
This place had the highest mortality
rate in the world and it
has been completely turned
around.”
Delivering foreign aid in a
war zone is difficult and
required the mission to focus at
first on stabilization in support
of the counterinsurgency effort
led by U.S. military forces and
augmented by the Obama
administration with 30,000
more troops this year.
Frej said that USAID works
on “stabilization—hoping it can
transform to long-term development
of health, education, job
creation, agriculture, and
infrastructure.
“The military says the war
will be won by governance and
development—not military
force,” he said, while offering
up a definition of stabilization:
Clear away insurgents, hold the
area, build some government
presence, and transfer authority
to the local police and army.
Since the U.S. engagement
began in Afghanistan in 2001,
following attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon
hatched in Afghanistan by
Osama bin Laden, USAID’s
Afghan and other foreign contractors
have taken almost as
many casualties as the U.S. and
NATO military forces—800
casualties—said Frej. “We lost
44 USAID contractors in the
last four months,” Frej noted.
On July 2, four more contractors
from Germany, the
Philippines, and Afghanistan
died when suicide bombers
attacked a USAID post in Kunduz,
adding to the toll of aid
workers targeted by the Taliban,
who hope to discourage support
of the Kabul government and its
U.S. allies.
Frej is moving to Santa Fe,
N.M., where he plans to continue
working in a think tank or
university, possibly as an advisor
in recruitment of the next
USAID generation and putting
a special focus on Hispanics
and Native Americans.
He joined the Agency in
1987 and began his career in
Indonesia, following his work
in domestic development with
the Federal Home Loan Bank’s
Neighborhood Reinvestment
Corporation.
Frej returned to Indonesia as
mission director in time to head
the U.S. response to the 2004
tsunami. There he created an
effective reconstruction program
that included ending a
long insurgency in Aceh where
most of the 230,000 tsunami
deaths occurred as many miles
of urban housing were simply
swept away.
“Aceh was the first major
civilian-military assistance collaboration
we have ever seen,”
said Frej. U.S. helicopters flown
off carriers made it possible to
deliver aid to thousands of
stranded survivors isolated
after roads and bridges were
destroyed.
“The magnitude of the disaster
caused it,” said Frej. “It
established a framework for
close civilian-military cooperation.
We saw it again in the Pakistan
earthquake, in Haiti, and in
Afghanistan. It has served this
Agency and the U.S. military.”
Asked if he sees the everexpanding
need for foreign aid
as a sign that he’s fighting an
unwinnable struggle, Frej
recalls the progress he’s seen
over the decades. South Korea,
Thailand, and Taiwan no longer
need aid, and the same can be
said for Poland, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Croatia,
Hungary, and the Baltic states.
“USAID was in every one of
those countries a positive catalyst
for development,” said Frej.
He also recalls large and
durable USAID projects in
Afghanistan dating to the 1960s
such as the Kajaki Dam and
agricultural development in
Helmand—before a Soviet
invasion set off 30 years of
wars.
“This has been my career,”
Frej said. “Looking back, nothing
is more fulfilling than working
for USAID. I’d highly recommend
it for a new generation
of people coming out of grad
school or work. It provides an
opportunity to make a difference
in the world—to reach out
to the underserved.”
★ — B.B.
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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by mail to Editor, FrontLines, USAID,
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by FAX to 202-216-3035; or by e-mail to frontlines@usaid.gov
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